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THE SERVICES OF LEONARD BACON 




TO AFRICAN COLONIZATION 


BY 


LEONARD WOOLSEY BACON ?: c - * 


Reprinted from '‘Liberia,’’ Bueeetin No. 15, November, 1899, 
and No. 16, February, 1900 








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THE SERVICES OF LEONARD BACON TO AFRICAN 
COLONIZATION. 


It is only by a studious effort of the imagination that a reader 
of the present day is able to conceive of the fervor of that spirit 
of charitable enterprise in which Leonard Bacon was immersed 
from his childhood up. Born in Detroit in 1802, his infancy 
was passed amid the perils and privations of a missionary’s life 
among savages, and his early childhood in the cabin of a pioneer 
pastor on the Western Reserve. A schoolboy at Hartford, he lis¬ 
tened to the saintly Obookiah pleading the needs of his native 
Hawaiian islands, and was presented to him by his own mis¬ 
sionary father as one consecrated to the work of Christ. In his 
senior year at Yale, a boy of seventeen, he witnessed the farewell 
to the first company of missionaries to the Sandwich islands, and 
could with difficulty be withheld by his dut}' to his widowed 
mother and her fatherless little children from joining himself to 
the mission company. Whether he ever saw Samuel John Mills, 
I do not know; but when, at the age of eighteen, he became a 
member of Andover Seminary he found himself in an atmosphere 
redolent of the fragrance of that holy memory. At the end of 
the Seminary course, being appointed, though youngest of all, 
to pronounce the valedictoiy address, he uttered, among other 
memorable words, the following: 

“A young minister of the gospel once said to an intimate 
friend, ‘ My brother, you and I are little men, but before we die 
our influence must be felt on the other side of the world.’ Not 
many years after a ship returning from a distant quarter of the 
globe paused on her passage across the deep. There stood on 
her deck a man of God, who wept over the dead body of his 
friend. He prayed, and the sailors wept with him. And they 
consigned that body to the ocean. It was the body of the man 
who, in the ardor of youthful benevolence, had aspired to extend 



2 


THE SERVICES OF LEONARD BACON 


his influence through the world. He died in youth, but he had 
redeemed his pledge, and at this hour his influence is felt in Asia, 
in Africa, in the islands of the sea, and in every corner of his 
native country. This man was Samuel John Mills, and all that 
know his history will say that I have exaggerated neither the 
grandeur of his aspirations nor the result of his efforts. He 
traversed our land like a ministering spirit, silently and yet 
effectually, from the hill country of the Pilgrims to the valley of 
the Missouri. He wandered on his errands of benevolence from 
village to village and from city to city, pleading now with the 
patriot for a country growing up to an immensity of power, and 
now with the Christian for a world lying in wickedness. He ex¬ 
plored in person the desolations of the West, and in person he 
stirred up to enterprise and effort the churches of the East. He 
lived for India and Owhyhee (Hawaii), and died in the service 
of Africa. He went to heaven in his youth, but his works do 
follow him, like a long train of glory that still widens and 
brightens and v T ill widen and brighten forever. Who can measure 
the influence of one such minister of the gospel? ” 

It was not strange that the project of the colonization of Africa, 
in the promotion of which Mills had laid dow r n his young life, 
should engage the attention of the young men then occupying 
the places of Mills and his fellow-students. Mr. Bacon’s middle 
year (1821-’22) coincided with that vigorous reaction and revival 
of anti-slaver}^ feeling and action, both at the South and at the 
North, which succeeded to the temporary despondency produced 
by the success of “ the Missouri Compromise.” Notwithstanding 
the studious efforts to represent this and the following years as 
a period of apathy on the subject of slavery, they were really a 
time of the most earnest and practical activity. In the volume 
of the “Transactions of the Andover Society of Inquiry Con¬ 
cerning Missions ” for this time, out of six elaborate dissertations, 
not less than four are devoted to this subject. At the instance 
of a student from Kentucky, a committee was appointed to con¬ 
sider what could be done for the elevation of the Negro race, and 
the writing of its report was assigned to Mr. Bacon. Writing 
his recollections of this time more than a half-century later, he 
said : 

“We were to view the black population of our country as a 
definite portion of the human race—were to consider how it 
might be elevated from a degraded position to the dignity and 
privileges of Christian civilization. I read what I could find on 
the subject, but nothing was more helpful to me than a series of 




TO AFRICAN COLONIZATION. 


3 


articles from the pen of Jeremiah Evarts in the “ Panoplist ” for 
1820. Two of these articles were published while the Missouri 
question was pending; the third and fourth, ‘ On the Condition 
of the Blacks in this Country,’ were intended to show that the 
defeat on the Missouri question was no reason for despair; that 
the condition of the blacks was still a legitimate subject of dis¬ 
cussion, and that the improvement of their condition was still 
a legitimate object of effort on the part of patriotic and Christian 
men. * * * Another help I had in the sermon of the younger 
Edwards on 1 The Injustice and Impolicy of the Slave Trade and 
of the Slavery of the Africans,’ an eighteenth-century pamphlet 
which Ralph Randolph Gurley, then and thenceforward the 
enthusiastic servant of the American Colonization Society, had 
caused to be republished in Boston, hoping to give it circulation 
in the Southern States. In the simplicity of his heart he thought, 
and he always continued to think, that he was working for the 
universal extinction of slavery. Having mentioned his name, I 
must not be denied the privilege of paying here my tribute to 
his memory. I knew him well; and a man more worthy to be 
loved, more earnestly devoted to the service of God in doing 
good, and more self-forgetting and self-sacrificing I have not 
known.” 

The “ Life of Mills ” was at that time a fresh book. It was 
matter, of course, that the subject of his latest hopes and prayers, 
“ the idea of a colony in Africa which should become the ful¬ 
crum of effort for the elevation of the African race in America,” 
should be included in the studies of the committee. 

“ Our study and consultation resulted in convictions such as 
these: The colour which had been planted on Cape Montserrado 
might be made to grow into a free and civilized State; Christian 
benevolence, North and South, might unite in sustaining the 
colony and in securing for it not only good government, but 
schools and all other civilizing influences. Those of the colored 
people, whether bond or free, who might become inhabitants of 
such a colony would find their own condition greatly improved 
and would have the inspiration of hope for their children. The 
enterprise would excite neither alarm nor hostility in the slave¬ 
holding States, while it would be the means of conferring liberty 
on multitudes of slaves, and would rally to its support the entire 
Christianity of the South. * * * The civilized Negro State 
on the coast of Africa, with its growth in knowledge and in 
wealth and power, would react upon the condition of the African 
race in the United States and would set before them the strongest 
incentives to well-doing.” 

The young man of twenty years had small reason to complain 
that his labor was in vain. His report was recast into the form 


4 


THE SERVICES OF LEONARD BACON 


of a review, and thus published in the Christian Spectator for Sep¬ 
tember and October, 1823. A pamphlet edition of it was widely 
circulated by the agency of the Andover students; and it is an 
impressive sign of the times that then were, that this pamphlet, 
containing denunciations of American slavery as strong as ever 
were put into language, was not only published in New r England, 
but republished at Richmond for circulation at the South. 

On the invitation of the managers of the Colonization Society, 
a committee was appointed by the Society of Inquiry to visit 
Washington and attend the annual Colonization meeting at 
Washington. The presence of the two young men from And¬ 
over was not without weight in the councils of the Colonization 
Society. “At the first meeting of the board of managers,” writes 
Mr. Solomon Peck, making report of their doings, “ Mr. Bacon, 
in behalf of the delegation and by request of the board, sug¬ 
gested four topics of consideration and accompanied them by 
such remarks as the occasion seemed to demand. The first re¬ 
spected the fitting out of ships for Liberia; the second the ap¬ 
pointment of agents and the formation of auxiliary and State 
societies; the third the establishment of a periodical publica¬ 
tion-, and the fourth the establishment of a seminary for blacks.” 
The one thing which the delegates most emphasize in their re¬ 
port is the unvarying tone of opposition to slavery which was 
heard throughout the meeting from men both of the South and 
of the North. They say: 

“ In almost every conversation with the board of managers 
we have given a prominent place to the subject of slavery; we 
have been met with the utmost frankness and cordiality ; we 
have received the most unequivocal assurances which the nature 
of the case permits, that the extinction of slavery is with them 
an object of primary importance. We had the pleasure in par¬ 
ticular of hearing a gentleman of the South, of high standing 
and of extensive and increasing influence generally, as well as 
of weight in the board, express at one of these meetings his utter 
detestation of slavery. His chief motive, he said, in becoming 
a member of the Colonization Society w^as the hope that it would 
exterminate slavery from the land, and he should withdraw his 
support at once were he compelled to relinquish that expecta¬ 
tion.” 

Among the near friends of Mr. Bacon at Andover was Samuel 
Hooker Cowles, of Farmington, whose noble “ enthusiasm of 


TO AFRICAN COLONIZATION. 


5 


humanity ” and whose early death are commemorated in the 
Christian Spectator of January, 1828. He was an anti-slavery 
man of the early and noble type, “ willing to lend his hand to 
any measure which prudence and philanthropy might dictate.” 
His favorite project was “the establishment of an African col¬ 
lege, where youth were to be educated on a scale so liberal as to 
place them on a level with other men and fit them for extensive 
usefulness to their brethren, either in this country or in the 
colonies.” In such plans for the elevation of the colored race 
the minds of these generous young men were busy. Presently 
there came to Mr. Bacon a noble opportunity of setting them 
before the public. 

For several successive years a number of the Boston churches 
united, at the Park Street church, in a religious celebration of 
the Fourth of July. In the year 1824 Mr. Bacon was invited to 
be the orator on that occasion. It was impossible for a generous 
mind to join in the jubilation over the liberty and prosperity of 
the people at large without being reminded of the enslavement 
and degradation of the people of color. Not only in Boston, but 
elsewhere, the Christian celebration of Independence Day became 
an annual appeal in behalf of the still dependent, depressed, and 
enslaved. The title of Mr. Bacon’s Boston oration was “A Plea 
for Africa.” Exhibiting the pitiable condition of the African 
race, both in its native continent and elsewhere in the world, he 
argued that the task of raising it from its degradation, whether 
in Africa or in America, was one task and not two. 

“ If we would be successful in the pursuit of either, we must 
aim at the attainment of both. Cover Africa with the institu¬ 
tions of civilized freedom, and fill it with the light of knowledge 
and religion, and the whole Negro race is raised in a moment 
from its hopeless depth of degradation ; and, on the other hand, 
give freedom and intelligence and all the rights and honors of 
humanity to the exiled descendants of Africa, and you have 
completely provided for the salvation of the continent from 
which they sprung.” 

Having expatiated fervidly on these two aspects of his sub¬ 
ject, he came to the practical conclusion of his discourse. The 
various and diverse efforts for the good of the colored race ought 
to be combined in a system that should accomplish the whole 
work. 


6 


THE SERVICES OF LEONARD BACON 


“Those projects of benevolence toward Africa to which the 
attention of the American public has already been invited do in 
fact constitute such a system. The means of elementary in¬ 
struction and the apparatus of moral and religious culture which 
are employed on our colored population lie at the foundation of 
all African improvement. The societies for the abolition of 
slavery are continually urging the claims of these unfortunates 
with a zeal which scorns to be weary, and which gathers impulse 
from discouragement. The scheme of an African seminary for 
liberal education, which has been as yet only slightly discussed, 
will not be forgotten, for there are men engaged in its behalf who 
will never rest while God spares them to the world till the chasm 
which they now lament shall have been filled up and the school 
which they have projected shall be sending forth its pupils to 
become throughout the earth the noblest and most efficient 
benefactors of Africa. * * * And to consummate the sys¬ 
tem, the institution for which I am particularly desirous to excite 
your immediate interest is sending back the descendants of Africa 
to the land of their fathers, that they may extend over the con¬ 
tinent which God has given them for their inheritance the light 
and blessedness of Christian civilization.” 

The spirit of this “plea for Africa” never ceased to be th e 
spirit of Mr. Bacon’s long and strenuous advocacy of the cause 
of colonization. It was the spirit of a large and generous phi¬ 
lanthropy, intent not on some one or another scheme, but on 
every measure that promised good help for the lifting up of a 
sorely wronged, depressed, and degraded race of his fellow-men. 
His first and immediate duty was to the colored people within 
his reach. The first Fourth of July after his ordination as pastor 
at New Haven (1825) he repeated there the “ Plea for Africa ” 
given the year before in Boston. Printed in pamphlets and 
newspapers, with its unreserved denunciations of slavery, it was 
widely circulated and warmly welcomed at the South as well as 
at the North. Two days later a few gentlemen met at Mr. 
Bacon’s room, July 6th, by whom it was— 

“ Voted, that we, the Rev. Leonard Bacon, Mr. Luther Wright, 
Mr. Alexander C. Twining, Mr. Edward Beecher, and Mr. Theo¬ 
dore D. Woolsey, do form ourselves into a club, to be entitled 
the Anti-slavery Association.” 

The five young men, most of them college tutors, with two 
others, subscribed $35 out of their little salaries and set them¬ 
selves about the work to be done, first, for the black population 


TO AFRICAN COLONIZATION. 


7 


of the city of New Haven ; second, on the public sentiment of 
the city and State, and, third, through the influence of the 
theological students in the Yale Seminary. How earnestly and 
practically they began the first part of their work was soon 
evidenced by the formation, in conjunction with other citizens, 
of “ The African Improvement Society of New Haven.” The 
documents are still extant showing the careful and sympathetic 
house-to-house inquiry that was instituted, showing the pitiable 
degradation in which the colored people of that town were living 
in their slums or their poor, disreputable suburbs. In April, 
1827, the society printed an address which set forth these noto¬ 
rious and painful facts and its own methods and purposes in 
view of them. Charitable ladies had given their services in per¬ 
sonal work. Religious worship and instruction had been organ¬ 
ized, with one of the best and kindest of men, the Rev. Simeon 
S. Jocelyn, as pastor. Schools had been provided both for 
children and for older persons. A library was to be established 
suited to their use and a savings society was to encourage every 
disposition to thrift and providence. These earnest labors, 
continued from year to year, were “ not in vain in the Lord.” 
In 1831 the editor of the Liberator wrote from New Haven of 
the wretched negro community in that city : “As a body, in no 
place in the Union is their (the colored people’s) situation so 
comfortable or the prejudices of the community weaker against 
them.” But of what sort was the condition of this population 
where it was most comfortable was set forth in Mr. Bacon’s 
Fourth of July sermon of 1830. 

“Who are the free people of color in the United States, and 
what are they ? In this city there are from eight hundred to a 
thousand. Of these a few families are honest, sober, industrious, 
pious, and in many points of view respectable. But what are 
the remainder ? Every one knows their condition to be a condi¬ 
tion of deep and dreadful degradation, but few have ever formed 
any conception of the reality. The fact is that, as a class, they 
are branded with ignominy. They are surrounded by every 
temptation to vice. More than half the incentives to industry, 
to self-improvement, to frugality, to the common virtues of so¬ 
ciety are never addressed to their minds. What the result is 
may be traced in the statement of a few facts which were col¬ 
lected and published in this city less than a year ago. [Here 
the preacher read detailed extracts from the report of a Bible 


8 


THE SERVICES OF LEONARD BACON 


Society’s visitor whose duty had called him to visit every colored 
family in New Haven.] 

“ Such is the condition of the great body of the 800 people of 
color in this enlightened and Christian city of New Haven. In 
the midst of all our enjoyments, what have they to enjoy ? And 
certainly their condition in this city is no worse than a fair speci¬ 
men of their condition elsewhere. Yet in the United States the 
population of this description amounts, probably, to not less than 
800,000. There are in this country 300,000 freemen who are 
freemen only in name, degraded to the dust and forming hardly 
anything else than a mass of pauperism and crime. In this State 
one-thirty-fourth part of the population is of the description we 
are now considering; and yet that thirty-fourth part of the popu¬ 
lation furnishes the State prison with one-third of its convicts. 
And the facts are substantially the same throughout the Union.” 

In his strenuous endeavors for the social, moral, and intellect¬ 
ual uplifting of the colored people about him, Mr. Bacon felt, 
as others like-minded were feeling, the necessity of opening some 
hopeful career to a people so depressed and discouraged. There 
had been nothing to weaken his early conviction that the pros¬ 
perity of the African colony would be a blessing not only to the 
colonists but to the colored people remaining in America. 

‘ ‘ Will not the great body of the free people of color in this country 
experience the benefits of this undertaking ? Will they not soon 
learn that there is a land where the Negro is no more degraded 
and where the deep brand of ignominy fades from his brow ? 
And will not the knowledge of such a fact tend to waken and 
expand the capacities of their nature ? Will it not tend to rouse 
them to self-improvement and to enterprise ? Will there not 
grow up a strong and animating sympathy between them and 
their brethren beyond the seas ? Will they not thus insensibly 
acquire both self-respect and the respect of others? Will not 
the wretchedness of their degradation be alleviated ? And as 
this new light shines on their darkness will not a new impulse 
and a new efficiency be imparted to every other effort of benev¬ 
olence in their behalf? Let this work be successfully prosecuted, 
and how long wfill it be ere the same spirit of adventure which 
carries so many of our young men to the banks of the Ohio, the 
Illinois, and the Missouri will impel thousands of young men 
of color to seek a home on the hardly more distant shores of 
Africa ? ” 


And then he further commends the enterprise of colonization 
for its tendency to promote the abolition of slavery. 1, it offers 
to many individuals a long-wished-for opportunity to emanci- 


TO AFRICAN COLONIZATION. 


9 


pate their slaves ; 2, it promotes continual discussion of the sub¬ 
ject of slavery; 3, it removes one of the greatest obstacles to the 
progress of conviction at the South—the condition of the free 
blacks * 

Nothing is more notable and more characteristic of the man 
in the work of this early advocate of colonization than the con¬ 
stancy with which he held this enterprise in its due relative 
place as part of a system of efforts for the advancement of the 
colored race throughout the world; but this was the spirit and 
temper of the men in general with whom he was cooperating. 
It was the very people who were laboring to encourage the emi¬ 
gration to Liberia that w T ere at the same time active in efforts 
for the advancement of the colored people at home, so that it 
could boldly be said, in 1830, “We doubt whether a city can be 
found north of Philadelphia which has not its ‘ Clarkson So¬ 
ciety ’ or its ‘A frican Improvement Society,’ or some such asso¬ 
ciation aiming to promote the comfort and improvement of this 
wretched population.” f Perhaps his most intimate associate in 
the Connecticut Colonization Society was that “enthusiast of 
humanity,” Thomas H. Gallaudet, of Hartford. Between the 
Christian communities of Hartford and New Haven there was a 
generous emulation in labors for the uplifting of the black pop¬ 
ulation of the two cities. 

A favorite plan of the young men at Andover, as we have seen, 
was the plan of a college for the liberal education of colored 
youth. The first public announcement of the scheme was made 
by Mr. Bacon, when, in 1823, at the age of twenty-one, he urged 
it upon the Colonization Society, at Washington. It was advo¬ 
cated by him in his “ Plea for Africa ” at Boston in 1824, and at 
New Haven in 1825. Not only in Andover was the plan taken 
up with eagerness. President Griffin, of Williams College, was 
enthusiastic in its favor. Theodore Woolsey was earnest and 
wise in counsel about it, and his friend, Ridgely, wrote to Woolsey 
and Bacon: 

“ I am delighted with the idea of calling a general meeting at 
New York to deliberate about the practicability of establishing 

*The substance of this sermon, recast and expanded as a review article, 
was published in the Quarterly Christian Spectator for September, 1830. 

f L. Bacon in Qu. Chr. Spectator , II, 524. 



10 


THE SERVICES OF LEONARD BACON 


a Negro university. The necessities of Africa cry aloud for some 
such institution. Her children are starving for the bread of 
knowledge. They must have it. It is my opinion that twenty 
well educated and accomplished young Negro gentlemen (I hope 
you are prepared for the unusual association of terms) would do 
more for that forlorn and outcast race than all that has been yet 
accomplished by their distinguished benefactors at Washington. 
It would go far to dignify the name.” 

Already, in the summer of 1825, this project had been talked 
over in the little “Anti-slavery Association ” of young coloniza- 
tionists at New Haven. The chief discouragement which it en¬ 
countered was the non-success of a feeble experiment in that 
direction which was languishing in the hands of the Presbyterian 
Synod of New Jersey; but the matter was not let drop. After 
wide consultation and correspondence, in the summer of 1829, 
the matured plan of the institution was submitted to a circle cff 
leading citizens of New Haven, especially those connected with 
Yale College, and was cordially approved. A member of Mr. 
Bacon’s congregation, Arthur Tappan, subscribed $1,000 condi¬ 
tionally as the nucleus of a fund. The plan which had been 
cherished by the young pastor for more than seven years seemed 
in a fair way to be realized. A little more, and the foundation of 
Hampton and Atlanta and Tuskegee might have been antici¬ 
pated by forty years. 

The defeat of this part of Mr. Bacon’s broad and comprehen¬ 
sive scheme for the uplifting of the colored people was due to 
a conjunction of circumstances that made an epoch in the his¬ 
tory of the colonization enterprise and turned the labors of some 
of its friends into a new direction. Hitherto the problem had 
been to awaken benevolent interest in it to the point of con¬ 
tributing the large sums required for the founding of a new State 
across the ocean and to satisfy conscientious masters desirous of 
emancipating their slaves that there was a hopeful career open 
to the freedman in his fatherland. Positive opposition to the 
enterprise there was none, except from the very few scattering 
voices that had begun to be heard here and there at the South 
in defense of slavery as a permanent policy. Henceforth it was 
to be subject to persistent attack from opposite directions, re¬ 
quiring it to wear “ the armor of righteousness on the right hand 
and on the left.” 


TO AFRICAN COLONIZATION. 


11 


Tn the year 1829 the Fourth of July address at the Park Street 
church, in Boston, was delivered by Mr. William Lloyd Garri¬ 
son, who had then just been awakened to a sense of the injustice 
and wrong of slavery. There are many notable things in Mr. 
Garrison’s career, but by far the most remarkable of them is the 
protracted torpor of his conscience on this subject at a time 
when the community all about him was stirred with profound 
feeling and eager agitation. In his boyhood and youth he had 
been repeatedly at Baltimore, where the scenes of the internal 
slave trade had made no impression on his sensibilities. He 
had been in the newspaper work in New England and appar¬ 
ently had heard nothing of the strenuous anti-slavery activity 
manifested on all sides through press and pulpit and platform ; 
and yet he must have known something of it. He might by 
some possibility have forgotten the still recent agitations of the 
Missouri controversy. He might have failed to read the appeals 
of Jeremiah Evarts, by which the religious anti-slavery senti¬ 
ment in his own region had been profoundly stirred. He might 
not have happened to fall in with the edition of Edwards on 
“ Slavery and the Slave Trade,” printed at Boston by Secretary 
Gurley, of the Colonization Society, or with Mr. Bacon’s pamphlet 
on the condition of the black population. He may somehow 
have missed the anti-slavery meeting in his own village held 
on the Fourth of July by the ardent young abolitionists of 
Andover Seminary. But it is hardly conceivable that, being 
invited to deliver the seventh in a series of annual anti-slavery 
discourses he should not have heard of the six that had pre¬ 
ceded it; and in fact he himself, when first aroused from his 
exceptional indifference to the subject a few months before, cer¬ 
tified to the universal prevalence of an earnest anti-slavery 
sentiment, both at the South and at the North, in a paper penned 
by his own hand. 

With the zeal of a new convert, the orator thus suddenly 
awakened from his long and strange apathy on the subject on 
which all the community beside were feeling so intensely, made 
a speech marked by two characteristics: first, his impression 
that he w^as almost alone in his sympathy for the blacks, “ over 
whose sufferings (said he) scarcely an eye weeps or a heart melts 
or a tongue pleads either to God or man; ” secondly, the wild 
extravagance of his advocacy of colonization. It was to accom- 


12 


THE SERVICES OF LEONARD BACON 


plish a miraculous sea-change in the emigrants; and it might 
be effected by the deportation of the black population at the 
cost of the Federal Government. The colonization cause has 
been frequently imperiled by the extravagance of its partisans, 
and never more so than at this time. 

Happily the danger from Mr. Garrison’s friendship, which 
ruined whatever it clung to, was escaped, and the less serious 
damage of his bitter enmity incurred. Only a few months after 
this colonization discourse in Boston, Mr. Garrison was making 
a tour through the North for the purpose of making what was 
afterward published under the title, “An address delivered be¬ 
fore the Free People of Color in Philadelphia, New York, and 
other cities during the month of June, 1831.” The address con¬ 
tained some wholesome, kindly advice, and some things calcu¬ 
lated to flatter that vanity which has so often been a pitiable 
and fatal weekness of the colored people—to encourage them to 
a bumptious and pushing demand for social equality, and to 
excite their bitter and malignant passions. The discourse con¬ 
cluded with a venomous attack on the Colonization Society and 
its supporters, in which the studious attempt was made to poison 
the minds of the colored people with the belief that the men and 
women who, for long years before he had taken any interest in 
the subject, had been engaged in various efforts for the advance¬ 
ment of the depressed race both in America and in Africa, were 
really embarked in a dark conspiracy to shut them out from 
the light of knowledge, to defraud them of their rights, and to 
perpetuate slavery. Few things are more illustrative of the help¬ 
less ignorance of the blacks than the fact that it should be pos¬ 
sible for a mischief-making demagogue to deceive them by such 
talk about those whom they had known for their generous friends 
and benefactors. The sorrowful facts about the low condition 
of that people that had been sought out by charitable inquiry 
and laid before the benevolent public as the ground of an appeal 
for aid and protection to the helpless and instruction to the igno¬ 
rant were quoted to them with the emphasis of capitals, as proof 
that “ those who have entered into this conspiracy against 
human rights [the colonization enterprise] are unanimous in 
abusing their victims.” Such talk as this naturally did not tend 
to inspire with confidence in Mr. Garrison “the Anti-slavery 
Society of New Haven” and “the African Improvement Society,” 


TO AFRICAN COLONIZATION. 


13 


whose labors for the colored people of that town had had the 
result of making their condition, according to Mr. Garrison’s 
own testimony, better than anywhere else in the United States. 
But that which more deeply alienated from him the respect of 
many of the friends of the colored people everywhere was the 
apparent purpose and the unmistakable tendency of his lan¬ 
guage to incite bitter race hatred and bloody insurrection and 
servile war with all its horrors. His language to the Negroes 
was as mild as Mark Antony’s “ Good friends, sweet friends, let 
me not stir jmu up to mutiny! ” and the meaning of it seemed 
as obvious. Less than eight months from the beginning of the 
Liberator the ferocious insurrection of Southampton broke out 
(August 22, 1831), followed by a more ferocious retaliation on 
the part of the whites. It was inevitable that the public mind, 
justly or unjustly, should connect the two facts in the relation 
of cause and effect; and the impression upon the public could 
not but be deepened by the style, not easily distinguishable from 
glee and exultation, in which the awful news was announced in 
the Liberator with the heading, “ Blood! Blood ! Blood ! ” and 
with the editor’s claim that these horrors were the fulfillment 
of his predictions and a just retribution on the miserable com¬ 
munity that had been overwhelmed by them. 

Most inopportunely, it was just while the details of this bloody 
tragedy were still arriving at New Haven that the scheme for an 
African college, which had so long been maturing in the councils 
of the friends of the colored people and of the colonization en¬ 
terprise, and which had received the approval of the leading 
citizens of New Haven, was announced to have been taken under 
the patronage of Mr. Garrison, who was not ashamed to flatter 
the silly vanity of the Negroes with absurd promises of gigantic 
intellectual superiority that it would confer upon them “ after 
the first four years.” The graduates of this college were to be¬ 
come “ the Websters and Clays and Hamilton's and Dwights and 
Edwardses of the day,” and the “judges and representatives and 
rulers of the people—the whole people.” Such talk as this, ad¬ 
dressed to the poor, illiterate, and credulous Negroes, was more 
than disgusting to sober citizens; in view of the Virginia mas¬ 
sacres, it was alarming. The occasion was eagerly seized by 
politicians interested in the Southern vote. In hot haste a city 
meeting was called, and after speeches appealing to the meaner 


14 


THE SERVICES OF LEONARD BACON 


passions of the populace, a series of resolutions was passed al¬ 
most unanimously that are an ineffaceable blot on the history 
of New Haven. In a strain that afterward became shamefully 
familiar to the public ear, they denounced “ the founding of col¬ 
leges for educating colored people ” as a an unwarrantable and 
dangerous interference with the internal concerns of other States,” 
and declared that “ the mayor, aldermen, common council, and 
freemen will resist the establishment of the proposed college in this 
place by ever}" lawful means.” In face of such a demonstration 
of public sentiment in that place in which, of all the Union, the 
condition of the colored people was most comfortable and the 
prejudices against them weakest, it was vain to urge the project 
further at that time. In this outburst of popular madness Mr. 
Bacon lost the hopes and patient labors of eight years. But the 
occasion did not pass without his solemn, indignant, and reiter¬ 
ated protest. “ With mortification and sorrow ” he rebukes “ the 
spirit with which we have seen a sober and Christian community 
(or one so reputed) rush together to blot out the first ray of hope 
for the blacks.” “Are we,” he asks, “ unnecessarily disturbed 
or grieved without a cause when those whose business it was fear¬ 
lessly to stand up and stem this oppressive, inexorable prejudice— 
to show that it is but a limb of that accursed system of bondage 
which we all execrate and lament—when such men, we say, join 
in and fan the flame ? ” * 

* Religious Intelligencer , September 17, 1831. The authorship of the ar¬ 
ticle was not doubtful. The way in which the history of this affair is 
written in the interest of Mr. Garrison and his sect is highly character¬ 
istic. According to writers of this party, the Colonizationists were in a 
“ conspiracy ” to defeat all efforts to elevate the colored people in America, 
and thus to force them into exile. But “ the Abolitionists from the be¬ 
ginning recognized the duty of devising some means for the education of 
colored youth.” Mr. Garrison had thought and spoken of the idea when 
he lived in Baltimore; but Mr. Jocelyn, of New Haven, who represented 
Mr. Garrison’s views in that “ hot-bed of colonization,” was the first white 
man to conceive the idea of founding in this country a college for Negroes, 
and his plan, which had been broached two years before, was defeated 
(so the story is made to run) through the guilty connivance and cowardice 
of Mr. Bacon, who “ did not find his voice on this occasion, but bent be¬ 
fore the storm.” (See Q. Johnson, “Garrison and his Times,” 119-124. 
Life of Garrison, chap. VIII. Henry Wilson’s “The Slave Power,” I, 
215.) This is one instance out of a multitude of the insane recklessness 
of truth that is manifested in the writings of this school. 



TO AFRICAN COLONIZATION. 


15 


The concerted and persistent attack on the Colonization So¬ 
ciety that was led by Mr. Garrison imposed upon Mr. Bacon a 
double duty. His immediate task was to refute the calumnious 
misrepresentations made by Mr. Garrison in his address to the col¬ 
ored people, and a few months later in his pamphlet, “ Thoughts 
on Colonization.” How thoroughly this was done, with expos¬ 
ure of fallacious arguments and false references and shockingly 
garbled quotations, may be seen in Mr. Bacon’s successive arti¬ 
cles in The Quarterly Christian Spectator for June, 1832, and March, 
1833. The favorite fallacy of the Society’s assailants had been to 
present an array of wrong sentiments which individual sup¬ 
porters of the Society had expressed or could be represented as 
having expressed, and to prove by these that the Society was a 
cruel and inhuman defender of slavery and enemy of the colored 
race. It might have been proved by exact parity of reasoning 
and with far greater copiousness of evidence that it was an abo¬ 
lition society devoted to the promotion of the interests of the 
colored people in America. In fact, it was neither one nor the 
other, but simply a colonization society, limited by its constitu¬ 
tion to a single, definite work and having no competency to 
meddle with others. 

And nevertheless it was true that the Society, conceived and sus¬ 
tained as it had been in the noblest spirit of Christian patriotism 
and humanity, publicly advocated and sustained for the prom¬ 
ise that it gave of elevating the colored race on both conti¬ 
nents, of promoting emancipation and procuring the abolition of 
slavery, was exposed to unjust odium by the unworthy argu¬ 
ments and the unworthy tone with which it had sometimes 
been commended by individuals. Having its headquarters at 
Washington, the center of political management, there was 
danger that sinister influences might prevail in its councils. It 
was a besetting temptation to the Society to lean on the fleshly 
arm of distinguished politicians. The crisis called for a deter¬ 
mined effort to hold the institution true to its course as a 
benevolent society. 

It was a deep sense of the importance of this that induced 
Mr. Bacon, notwithstanding an unusual pressure of work and 
care at home, to make the tedious wintry journey to Washington 
to attend the annual meeting of the Society in January, 1832. 
What importance was attached by some of his nearest friends 


16 


THE SERVICES OF LEONARD BACON 


to this journey of his is indicated in a few lines in a letter from 
his wife. After giving several instances of kind attention to her 
on the part of the Rev. Simeon Jocelyn, the devoted friend and 
pastor of the colored people of New Haven, she adds : 

“ He acts and talks as if you had conferred a special favor on 
him by going on this business. He told his people on Sunday 
what you had gone for, and proposed to them to have a concert 
of prayer on Monday morning that you might be strengthened 
and directed from on high to do those things which would be 
for the good of the poor slaves and for the glory of God. He 
said they all, every one, rose up like a cloud and agreed to ob¬ 
serve it. The people, all that I have seen or heard of, are glad 
you went, and, I think, will take more interest in the Society on 
account of it.” 

A letter from Mr. Jocelyn himself expresses the deepest in¬ 
terest in Mr. Bacon’s “ visiting Washington to plead the cause 
of the oppressed people of color and to present the true interests 
of the Colonization Society on the pure principles of benevolence 
and not ‘ after the rudiments of men,’ ‘ the men of this world.’ ” 

At the thronged meeting in the Hall of Representatives, Mr. 
Bacon was followed by Edward Everett in one of his most ex¬ 
quisite pieces of rhetoric, and by Congressman Archer, of Vir¬ 
ginia. His own brief speech distinctly defines the dangers which 
the wisest friends of the colonization enterprise apprehended as 
besetting it at this critical time—dangers which their best efforts 
did not succeed in wholly averting. It was in support of a reso¬ 
lution to the effect that the Society ought to be commended to 
the public as a benevolent institution, and especially to the free 
people of color as an institution designed primarily for their 
good. The meeting, he writes: 

“ Is universally said to have been a meeting of extraordinary 
interest. The great hall was crowded at an early hour, so much 
so that when I arrived I found much difficulty in forcing my 
way through the crowd to the narrow area that was left vacant 
near the chair of the president, where I was compelled to stand 
through nearly all of the exercises. I had not been able to put 
pen to paper by way of preparation for my speech, and it fell to me 
to speak first, in that strange place, in that great assembly, and 
in a most inconvenient location for making an unembarrassed 
extemporaneous address. Yet I got through very confortably, on 
the whole, and said nearly all that I had intended, without being 


TO AFRICAN COLONIZATION. 


17 


betrayed into any expressions suited to give offense and with¬ 
out exceeding twenty minutes.” 

That twenty-minute speech may be read in full in the African 
Repository of the year 1832, but some parts of it are specially 
illustrative of the history of that period : 

“ I apprehend, sir, that at the present crisis there may be some 
danger ot forgetting that our institution is primarily and pre¬ 
eminently benevolent. It is not impossible that, in our reason¬ 
ings about the ulterior results and complicated bearings of the 
work, w T e may too much overlook the immediate and grand de¬ 
sign of doing good to the wretched, elevating a degraded race 
from its misery, and chasing from a wide continent the deep 
darkness that has covered it for uncounted ages. Let the insti¬ 
tution cease to be a benevolent institution, and its prosperity 
will begin to fail, the devout will cease to commend it to God 
in their prayers, and the friends of suffering humanity will no 
longer toil in its behalf. 

* * * “ There is danger that the free colored population 

will fall into the hands of far other men than the friends of this 
Society. We have seen something of this danger, and the 
sources of it are not difficult to be discovered. Our institution 
is one the success of which will not only bless those who are the 
immediate objects of its beneficence, but by blessing them will 
bless also the country in which no laws and no benevolent exer¬ 
tions have as yet been able to secure them an equal birthright, 
and the people among whom—such is the force of mutual preju¬ 
dice—they are strangers and outcasts. Unquestionably, sir, 
this is an important aspect of our enterprise, and one which I 
would by no means desire any man to overlook ; yet here is the 
source of the danger referred to. When the Society is spoken 
of as an institution which is to relieve us from present and press¬ 
ing evil, and which may relieve the country from a prospective 
and not distant danger—when such views are urged on the self- 
interest of the nation, the people of color are not ignorant of this 
aspect of the subject; they read, they hear, and when they are 
spoken of as a nuisance to be got rid of, they prove themselves 
men—men of like passions with us—by resenting it. Their 
prejudices are roused. They stand aloof from the design; and the 
fact is not to be concealed that the free people of color, taken as 
a community, look on our undertaking with disaffection. Mean¬ 
while there are men whom nature has endowed with such talents 
as equip a demagogue, and with whom it seems an object worth 
ambition to head the free people of color and to receive the honor 
of their applause. Such men know how to move these people in 
the line of their prejudices. ‘ This country,’ they tell them, ‘ is 

2 


18 


THE SERVICES OF LEONARD BACON 


your country; here you were born, and here you have a right 
to stay. We are your friends, and we will maintain your rights 
against those who would drive you into exile.’ Thus moving 
on their ignorance, wearing the aspect of friendship, and let us 
say, too, acting as their friends in many other respects, such 
men find it at present an easy matter to confirm them in their 
prejudices, and to acquire an influence over them which may be 
directed to disastrous issues. 

“ I have not made these remarks, sir, without a view to their 
practical application. We all believe that this institution is admi¬ 
rably calculated to do good to this unhappy portion of mankind. 
We know that this is its immediate design. In our view, it stands 
with its hands full of blessings for these our fellow-men. Let 
us go, then, and show these fellow-men that we are individually 
their friends. Let us show this in every way in which intelli¬ 
gent and substantial benevolence can manifest itself. Thus we 
may get within the intrenchment of their prejudices, and may 
bring them to understand how vast, how rich, bow noble is the 
inheritance which the Society offers to them. They need only 
to know this clearly, and nothing more will be necessary to carry 
them thither.” 

The speaker urged upon the managers of the Society the 
policy of no longer paying the transportation expenses of emi¬ 
grants, but rather of putting the whole strength of the Society 
into the improvement of the colony itself. 

“ May it not be that this hiring them by paying all their ex¬ 
penses has confirmed them in the suspicion that their removal 
is designed entirely for our benefit and not at all for theirs. It 
seems to result from the principles of human nature that when 
Liberia shall be known and indisputably acknowledged to afford 
the free people of color all those privileges and blessings which 
we are assured that it will afford them, they will rush thither of 
their own accord and pay their own expenses. We may be 
confident that the more you do for the improvement of the 
colony, for the erection of public edifices, for the construction 
of roads and bridges, for the establishment of schools, the more 
you do to make it a desirable asylum, the more rapidly will 
you promote emigration. Let there be in Africa a well-ordered, 
prosperous, and intelligent republic, stretching along the sea 
and penetrating the continent, the forest vanishing before its 
citizens and the wilderness becoming a fruitful field, and when 
the tale come back to us, as surely it will, the children of Africa 
among us will hear it. The story will soon go down even to the 
dark depths in which they dwell. Voices which they cannot 
but understand will tell them of riches that are theirs if they 


TO AFRICAN COLONIZATION. 


19 


will rouse themselves and be men, and at that sound they will 
come forth to light and liberty as from the sepulcher. 

“ The enterprise of your Society, considered as a work of benev¬ 
olence bearing first and most of all on the well-being of the 
African race, commends itself to the regard of all who feel for 
the miseries of degraded humanity or who pray for the coming 
of the Kingdom of God. It occupies an eminent position among 
those undertakings of Christian zeal which are the glory of the 
age. It is to sustain a grand part in bringing about the con¬ 
summation of those hopes which look for the day when truth 
and righteousness shall everywhere prevail and under the light 
of the word of God every system that degrades or enthralls man¬ 
kind shall vanish like the fabric of a dream. Let us go on, 
then, with our work, cheered by the thought that these efforts 
of ours are combining with other influences to introduce the uni¬ 
versal dominion of liberty and purity and joy, when under the 
broad sk) r all around the green world there shall be one aspect of 
peace and no throne of a despot shall offend those smiling 
heavens, no footstep of a slave pollute that new and rejoicing 
earth.” 

The peril against which Mr. Bacon strove so earnestly was 
only partly and for a time averted. The immediate effect, in¬ 
deed, of Mr. Garrison’s crazy onslaughts on the Society was not 
very considerable. His extravagant invectives were easily re¬ 
futed, even refuting themselves sometimes by their own extrav¬ 
agance ; but the indirect effect of his attacks was more serioiis. 
They multiplied to the Society a retinue of most undesirable 
friends. For an egregious example of this, a small lawyer named 
Judson, in the small country town of Canterbury, Conn., made 
bimself notorious as a ringleader in the disgraceful persecution 
of the Crandall sisters for keeping a school for colored girls in 
their own house. • Presently he was found posing before the 
public as an advocate of the Colonization Society. This signal¬ 
ized him as an opponent of abolitionists and commended him to 
the favor of Southern politicians and of the administration, by 
whom he was exalted to the bench of a Federal court, in which 
capacity it afterward fell to him to preside at the famous trial of 
the case of The Amistad. Accessions of this kind could not take 
place without disgusting and repelling others, and the accessions 
could not easily be debarred. The platform of a colonization 
meeting was often used not only for defense against the virulent 
attacks of the Garrison abolitionists, but for those open apologies 


20 


THE SERVICES OF LEONARD BACON 


for slavery which now for the first time began to be heard at the 
North from politicians of both parties. A right and useful enter¬ 
prise does not cease to be right and useful when a bad man steps 
forward to advocate it from evil motives with fallacious argu¬ 
ments. Thus Mr. Bacon conclusively argued. It was not logical 
to desert a good cause because bad men adhere to it. It was not 
logical, but it was natural and inevitable that this would be done. 
Some honorable and high-minded men withdrew from the So¬ 
ciety, disgusted with their new associates. Mr. Bacon, not less 
disgusted, remained, still maintaining the integrity of his anti¬ 
slavery principles and recording his open protest against every 
wrong in act or deed. 

In these few pages I have recorded briefly and with many 
important omissions the services of Mr. Bacon to the cause of 
African colonization in the first decade of his public life, begin¬ 
ning in his boyhood. Services still more important were to be 
rendered by him in the stormy and perilous years that were to 
come. It may be that I shall have the privilege of continuing the 
story down to a later time; but so much as this, out of the life of 
one of the earliest and most ardent of the advocates of this cause, 
is enough for a vindication of the noble principles and motives 
of him self and the men with whom he was associated, and enough 
for a refutation of the calumnies which nearly seventy years ago 
were invented and published against the Society and its friends 
and which continue to be republished to this day. 

It is not unlikely to be said by some reader that the record of 
Mr. Bacon’s work may be accepted as a vindication of himself 
individually from the charge of sympathy with the system of 
slavery and of cold-hearted indifference to the welfare of the col¬ 
ored people, but that it shows no more than that he was an 
exception among the friends of African colonization generally. 
It is a sufficient answer to this to say that it was against him in¬ 
dividually and by name and as representative of the friends of 
colonization that these charges were made; that it was eminently 
his arguments and denunciations against slavery that were garbled 
and falsified by misquotation to prove that colonizationists were 
in sympathy with slavery; that it was his long public and pri¬ 
vate labors for the liberal education of the blacks, defeated 
through the folly of the enemies of colonization, that were claimed 


TO AFRICAN COLONIZATION. 


21 


by these as the fruit of their belated zeal, culpably abandoned 
by him ; that it is in full view of the instrumentalities organized 
and set in operation by him which had made the colored people 
of New Haven superior in condition to those of any other place 
in the Union, that he is maligned to this day as having had, like 
other colonizationists, u nothing but disparagement and con¬ 
tempt for the free people of color; ” that it was the pitiable facts 
set forth by him in an appeal to Christian hearts to enter into 
these labors for the uplifting of the depressed and degraded, that 
were used to poison the minds of the colored people against him 
and the philanthropists associated with him as men “ who 
have entered into a conspiracy against human rights,” and u are 
unanimous in abusing their victims.” If now it appears, as it 
must needs appear to any one who acquaints himself with 
the facts, that Leonard Bacon, from his brilliant boyhood to his 
honored grave, was the unwavering and ardent friend of liberty 
and justice, the unflinching enemy of slavery, the lover of hu¬ 
manity at its lowest and neediest not only, but the ready and 
eager helper, according to his opportunity, of every most help¬ 
less human creature, with a special tenderness of sympathy 
toward the African race as being most depressed and least be¬ 
friended—the result is something more than to vindicate him. 
It is to impeach and utterly discredit before the judgment-seat 
of history the witnesses who, undeterred by repeated and irref¬ 
utable exposures, persist in their attempt to fix upon him and 
men like-minded with himself an undeserved stigma. Their 
calumnies so recoil upon themselves as to put suspicion on any 
statement made by them in disparagement of any man’s char¬ 
acter or in glorification of themselves or of one another. The 
progress of exact historical study cannot be long in demonstrat¬ 
ing that the history of their bitter controversy with the great 
body of the Christian anti-slavery men of their time, as that his¬ 
tory is written or inspired by them, is a tissue of vainglorious 
and malignant fiction, in which the very truth that it contains is 
largely perverted to do the work of falsehood. 


Leonard Woolsey Bacon. 



- 








■ 























. 



THE SERVICES OF LEONARD BACON TO AFRICAN 
COLONIZATION. 


II. 

In the year 1833 the affairs of the American Colonization So¬ 
ciety were approaching a perilous crisis. This was not only, 
nor even chiefly, on account of the fierce attacks upon the So¬ 
ciety by Mr. Garrison. These were, some of them, so extrava¬ 
gant as to refute themselves; others of them were capable of 
being refuted and were refuted, and by none more conclusively 
than by Mr. Bacon himself; but the incessant reiteration of 
them was nevertheless effective in alienating from the Society 
some of those good men who had been attracted by the fervor 
of Mr. Garrison’s anti-slavery crusade and were not yet repelled 
from him by his frenzies. 

But these “ fightings without ” gave Mr. Bacon no serious con¬ 
cern for the cause that had grown dear to his heart through ten 
years of earnest and unpaid labor in its behalf. He was more 
concerned that there should be no just ground for attacks on 
the Society, and that even the pretexts for unjust attacks should 
be taken away. This is the aim of the following letter to Sec¬ 
retary Gurley, March 19, 1833: 

“ I see by the newspapers that there is some commotion in 
the Society at headquarters. I am anxious to hear authentic 
particulars. The relations of the Society to slavery seem to be 
the ground of dissension. Let me show' my opinion. I would 
have the Society declare by solemn public acts : 

“ 1. That it looks to the voluntary and peaceful abolition of 
slavery in the United States as one of the ultimate results of its 
labors. 

“ 2. That as a Society it has nothing to do with slavery, either 
for or against it, except as slavery may be affected by the exist¬ 
ence and growth of our African colonies. 

“ 3. That it has no control over the opinions or conduct of its 
members and friends; that it leaves every man to act on the 
subject of slavery and on every other subject according to the 
light of his ow r n conscience and under his personal responsibility 
to God, and that it is not to be held accountable for what any 
man says or does in relation to this subject. 


( 23 ) 


24 


THE SERVICES OF LEONARD BACON 


“4. That it does by no means propose its own enterprise as 
the only thing to be done for the abolition of slavery or for the 
improvement of the ignorant in this country or in Africa, or as 
necessarily rival or hostile to any other enterprise aiming at 
these ends.” 

There were other and not less grave troubles in which the 
Society had become involved through business mismanagement. 
Mr. Bacon’s anxiety led him to New York in “ anniversary 
week,” May, 1833, for consultation with the friends of the cause. 
In company with those energetic anti-slavery advocates, Gerrit 
Smith and Robert J. Breckenridge, he addressed the coloniza¬ 
tion meeting in the Brick Church. 

His interest in the whole subject was deepened by news from 
Maryland that the colonization society of that State had boldly 
taken an anti-slavery position, and was moving with declared 
purpose for the abolition of slavery in Maryland. The State 
society, dissatisfied with the negative position taken at Wash¬ 
ington, had determined to establish a separate colony for Mary¬ 
land, independent of the control of the national society, and in 
the name of free soil to invite the cooperation of the friends of 
liberty in all parts of the country. These proposals were com¬ 
municated to Mr. Bacon in a long letter from the very able 
chairman of the Maryland society’s committee of correspond¬ 
ence, John H. B. Latrobe, Esq. Inclosing to Mr. Bacon the 
outspoken abolitionist manifesto of the Society, Mr. Latrobe 
says: 

“ It is believed that the Society acted in accordance with the 
feelings of the people of the State and the legislature upon the 
subject. A slave-holding State has therefore now for the first 
time openly avowed its determination to free itself from slavery, 
and it has called on the North for assistance in the accomplish¬ 
ment of its design. Will the North aid it? There can be no 
doubt that the State of Maryland could be made a free State, 
and there can be as little doubt that if this could be effected 
colonization would be nobly illustrated. Virginia, Tennessee, 
Kentucky, and North Carolina would be influenced by the ex¬ 
ample, and more would be done for the cause of liberty than 
can ever be effected by the scattered, and feeble because scat¬ 
tered, operations of the American Colonization Society over the 
whole Union. Instead of quarreling with the North as to the 
effects of colonization, Maryland now says, We admit the justice 
of your views in regard to it; come and aid us in carrying them 


TO AFRICAN COLONIZATION. 


25 


into effect. Let the South alone for a season. Time and cir¬ 
cumstances will work the same conviction there about the evils 
of slavery that they have wrought in Maryland. When this 
last is freed from the blot that is upon her, we will lend our aid 
to remove it from Virginia.” 

Then, after entering into full details concerning the Maryland 
plan, the letter concludes : 

“ In this long letter, if I have trespassed upon your patience, 
it is because I rely upon your friendship to colonization. For 
this last ten years interested in it, I have never thought it 
promised fairer than at present. A slave State has determined 
to be a free one, and there is success in the very determination. 
Can the North refuse to hasten the period when it shall be com¬ 
plete ? ” 

This spontaneous movement at the South for the abolition of 
slavery was well fitted to stir the enthusiastic hopes of the 
young pastor. A few months later (October 11) came another 
letter from the same hand, reporting the hopeful progress of the 
new enterprise and inviting Mr. Bacon to accept, either perma¬ 
nently or for a time, the general agency for the Society, north 
of the Potomac, at a salary far beyond that of his pastorship at 
New Haven. Mr. Bacon’s answer to both of these letters was 
as follows, under date of October 22: 

“ In regard to the position taken by your Society, and your 
scheme for a new colony, I may say at once that you have my 
hearty approbation and may depend upon my humble but 
zealous cooperation. I have had my fears, which I expressed 
to Mr. Sheppard and Mr. Gurley, that there might be collision, 
or at least a want of cordiality, between the two societies, highly 
disastrous to both and to the common cause. These fears are 
now happily removed, and I cannot but hope that each colony 
in Africa, and each society in this country, will be a support 
and will impart new life and energy to the other. I have no 
doubt that the Christian public in every State this side of Mary¬ 
land will be perfectly ready, not, indeed, to transfer their stated 
contributions from the parent society to you, but to afford you, 
from time to time, in emergencies like the present, prompt and 
efficient aid. 

•“ In regard to your proposal to me to undertake the general 
agency of your Society, I feel constrained to answer your inquiry 
in the~negative. The proposal was certainly very gratifying as 
a mark of your confidence in one whom you know only by repu- 


26 


THE SERVICES OF LEONARD BACON 


tation, and as proceeding from men whose works show that their 
confidence is worth having; indeed I know not that any offer 
of the kind could be more inviting to me. I decline this, as I 
have declined similar proposals from Washington heretofore, on 
this ground distinctly, viz., that I regard my connection with 
my people as too sacred to be dissolved by any such call, while 
their affection towards me continues unabated and my strength 
is adequate to the labors of the pastoral office.” 

The approaching annual meeting of the Colonization Society, 
in January, 1834, was felt to be a life-or-death crisis for the So¬ 
ciety. There had been grave mismanagement in its business 
affairs; a debt of $40,000—formidably large for that day of small 
things—had been incurred; and the need was felt and acknowl¬ 
edged of serious changes, not only of organization but of consti¬ 
tution. Two weighty and statesmanlike letters from Mr. Bacon 
in the African Repository for December, 1833, and January, 1834, 
indicated the lines that must be followed if the Society would 
fulfill its trust and hold the confidence of the public. Review¬ 
ing the large responsibilities of the Society which had been in¬ 
adequately discharged, he remarks: 

“ It is a new phenomenon in the history of legislation and civil 
polity, that the supreme government of a young and growing 
nation in Africa, a government sustained by no military or naval 
force, a government preeminently dependent on the consent of 
the governed and on their experience of its utility, resides for 
the present, and, if rightly administered, will reside for some 
years to come, in the annually elected board of managers of an 
unchartered and unendowed benevolent association here in 
America. The governor of the colony is appointed by those 
managers, and is immediately and constantly responsible to 
them. The laws enacted by the governor in council are only 
temporary edicts till approved by them. The funds by which 
the government is supported and all its measures are prosecuted 
are drawn from their treasury; and the affairs of that govern¬ 
ment are every year becoming greater and more complicated. 
How important, then, is it that the organization of the Society 
should be such as to secure the greatest attention to its con¬ 
cerns, and the greatest promptitude, economy, and efficiency of 
action! ” 


As the annual meeting approached, urgent importunities were 
multiplied from different quarters to induce Mr. Bacon, at what¬ 
ever sacrifice, to attend it. Mr. Gurley writes : “ I am more and 


TO AFRICAN COLONIZATION. 


27 


more convinced that all for the cause depends on that meeting. 
I hope you will be with us. Gerrit Smith will.” He could not 
refuse to go; and yet it was with no confident hope of a good 
result. He writes home from Washington : 


“ I fear we shall not succeed in a reform without a struggle, 
and I fear that a reform with a struggle will destroy the Society 
as it exists at present, and will be made the occasion of alien¬ 
ating and terrifying all the South and putting back the anti¬ 
slavery influence of the Society; but reform we must have, for 
without reform we are ruined, and we can be only ruined with 
it.” J 


Well, the reform was achieved, and how important was the 
contribution to this result made by this youngest of those in 
council is partly manifest from the records and the journals of 
the time. Led off by the inspiring eloquence of Gerrit Smith 
and his munificent subscription of $5,000 toward the extinction 
of the debt, the assembly was aroused to new courage, and the 
fresh start was full of hope; but much still remained to be done, 
and in the midst of immense and multifarious labors Mr. Bacon 
found time to bestow on the cause so dear to him. Under date 
of February 3, 1834, he writes to Mr. Gurley: 

“ I take the earliest opportunity to put down on paper one or 
two thoughts for your consideration. If you think either of 
them worth attending to, you can make what use of it you please. 

“ 1. Ought not measures to be taken immediately to organize 
in Liberia a representative legislature, small, but larger than the 
present council there, on a plan somewhat like that of the legis¬ 
lative councils in our United States Territories ? Will not some 
security be thus obtained against negligence and abuses in the 
government? It seems to me that the report of the committee 
of the citizens of Liberia which I saw at - your office the other 
day is pretty good proof that such a legislature might be organ¬ 
ized there and might be of great use. Of course, it should be 
so limited in its powers as to leave the sovereignty for the present 
in the hands of the Societ}L The governor might have a veto, 
on their acts, and the board at home might control the governor. 

“ 2. Ought not arrangements to be made that every officer 
elected by the people shall be paid by the people, or not paid 
at all ? This, I think, would have two effects: (1) It would cur¬ 
tail the expenses of the Government; (2) it would make the 
people the more willing to keep their connection with the Society, 
when they should see and feel the difference between paying 
officers themselves and having them paid from our treasury. 


28 


THE SERVICES OF BACON LEONARD 


The patronage of the governor and of the board is likely to 
make the Government there strong enough, even after such a 
curtailment.” 

In this and later letters are other suggestions as to adminis¬ 
tration, and plans for the reduction of the debt, for which he 
was not only laboring, but out of his slender resources giving 
far beyond his means. “ My anxiety for the cause,” he says, 
“ is such that I find it difficult to hold my peace.” 

One of these letters to Mr. Gurley, dated February 25, enun¬ 
ciates a fundamental maxim of charitable management that is 
not always observed: 

“In regard to the ‘statement about your debt,’ let me say, 
make a full and fearless exposure of all the mischief and all the 
mismangement, come the blame where it may. There is no way 
to gain the 'public confidence but by giving your confidence first to the 
public. Let them see everything, and, among other things, let 
them see that the Society is thoroughly revolutionized ; that the 
spirit of mismanagement and inefficiency is no longer the pre¬ 
siding genius of your institution. If the public see any identity 
or sympathy between the present and the former direction, your 
ruin is irretrievable; you die insolvent, and leave your affairs 
to be settled by your creditors. * * * 

“ [Speaking of the difficult}' of finding a suitable man for 
colonial agent, in which the writer had taken active interest:] 
* * * If it were not for my own domestic ties and duties, 1 

think I would offer myself at once as a candidate for the colonial 
agency; but I would advise no man to undertake that warfare 
who has a wife and children to provide for.” 

Later, in this same correspondence (March 24), is an earnest 
effort to steer the Society clear of one of its besetting dangers. 
The opening sentence quotes a phrase of Mr. Gurley s which 
seemed to show a misapprehension of Mr. Bacon’s position. 

“ It is not, it never has been at all, my view that the good 
effects of colonization are to be ‘ limited to its Christian influ¬ 
ence in Africa.’ I look upon our institution as ‘the great 
means,’ though not at all the only means, ‘of hope and eleva¬ 
tion to the colored race.’ Yet, in my view, our work, as the 
Colonization Society, is to be done chiefly, almost entirely, in 
Africa. If we are successful there, we are successful everywhere. 
If we are successful there, we elevate the character and standing 
and enlarge the being, I had almost said, of every man of color 
in the world. If we are successful there , we draw thousands 


TO AFRICAN COLONIZATION. 


29 


upon thousands of these people to the possession of the privi¬ 
leges which Liberia will offer them. If we are successful there, 
the effect on this whole nation will be inestimable and illimit¬ 
able. If we fail there , we fail utterly. To me it is clear as the 
noon that our sphere of action is Africa; the object of all our 
efforts should be the promotion and perfection of our colonies. 
What we accomplish in respect to this country is to be accom¬ 
plished, not by direct action, but by reaction. This is the only 
safe policy. The moment you depart from this line and begin 
to act directly with a view to diminish the colored population 
in Virginia or anywhere else, you begin to involve the cause in 
embarrassment and defeat.” 

It was inevitable that the good work accomplished at the an¬ 
nual meeting of the Society should be evil spoken of. The 
strange animosity with which Mr. Garrison had now for four 
years been assailing the beneficent enterprise which just before 
he had extolled with extravagant eulogy had infected some 
better men than himself, and had been exalted into a sort of 
condition of fellowship among the extreme and violent abolition¬ 
ists. So good and upright a man as Joshua Leavitt, editor of 
the New York Evangelist , was moved at this period of the con¬ 
troversy to excesses of statement which he afterward regretted. 
In answer to a statement in his paper that the attempted re¬ 
form ” was ended, “ leaving all things in regard to the manage¬ 
ment, &c., as they were from the beginning,” Mr. Bacon pub¬ 
lished a not discourteous but decisive article which had wide 
currency and influence: 

“ The reform which I and those in whose behalf I acted de¬ 
sired lias been effected. * * * The direction of the institu¬ 
tion, instead of being left in the hands of an indefinite and im¬ 
perfectly organized body, is now committed to the executive 
officers and nine other individuals, who will annually render a 
strict account to their constituents. I feel no hesitation in 
saying for my colleagues, as well as for myself, that we have 
full confidence in the ability, fidelity, and benevolent views of 
the new board as it is actually constituted, and, what is of no 
inferior consequence, while these reforms were discussed with 
much freedom, and while on particular points of discussion 
there was no little difference of opinion, the reformed constitu¬ 
tion was finally agreed to, and the reformed board of managers 
was elected with entire unanimity. 

“ My confidence in the success of the colony of Liberia is not 
impaired, but strengthened. The want of management here 


30 


THE SERVICES OF LEONARD BACON 


and iii Africa, by which the cause has been so much embar¬ 
rassed, is at an end. The only constitutional object of the 
Society, namely, the voluntary colonization of people of color, 
now free or to be freed hereafter, will be pursued, 1 doubt not, 
vigorously, wisely, and with singleness of 'purpose. With the 
discussion of the ethics of slavery or the principles and process 
of its abolition the Society has nothing to do ; nor will the pres¬ 
ent board be disposed to meddle with that subject. On the 
other hand, I am equally confident that the Society as now 
organized will not suffer itself to become auxiliary to any scheme 
for the compulsory removal or the increased oppression of the 
colored people.” 

Mr. Bacon’s fixed resolution that the Colonization Society as 
a corporation should stick to its proper business and not enter 
into the slavery debate then raging did not at all imply that he 
shrank from that debase himself. In the Quarterly Christian 
Spectator for December, 1833, appeared a very serious and care¬ 
fully studied paper from his pen on the ethics of slavery. It 
has historical importance as being one of those “occasional 
essays” controverting, on the one hand, the fanatical notions 
of Mr. Garrison and his followers and, on the other hand, the 
equally fanatical defenses of slavery which, being gathered a 
few years later into a volume, helped to fix the clear, strong, 
and temperate convictions of Abraham Lincoln. Of course, the 
argument was violently attacked by the “ immediate abolition¬ 
ists.” It impugned their fundamental thesis, as enunciated by 
themselves, that “ slave-holding under every possible modifica¬ 
tion is man-stealing. Man-stealing, as combining impiety in 
principle, falsehood in claim, injustice and cruelty without in¬ 
termission and without end, is the most flagrant iniquity which 
a sinner can perpetrate. All profession of religion by a man 
who thus acts is a gross deception.” Debate with men who 
started from such premises was not hopeful, but one of the re¬ 
plies bore the signature of that former neighbor and yoke-fellow, 
but actual antagonist, Joshua Leavitt, whom Mr. Bacon held 
in such sincere respect that he wrote a detailed rejoinder, send¬ 
ing it in a fraternal private letter that said: “ I take all this 
trouble about the matter because 1 am determined not to fall 
out with such a brother as you.” Among other misconcep¬ 
tions of bis position which he corrected is one so important 
to the subject of this paper and so persistently and unscrupu- 


TO AFRICAN COLONIZATION. 31 

lously repeated to this day that it is worth while to make this 
extract: 

u You say that ‘ the Spectator has now ceased from the delusive 
dream of abolishing slavery by expatriation,’ intimating that 
the Spectator has formerly taught that slavery is to be abolished 
by expatriation. 1 am bold to reply, as having written nearly 
all the articles which have touched upon that subject in the 
Christian Spectator for the last ten years, that no such doctrine 
has been taught on the pages of that work. I am not such a 
stickler for consistency that I cannot give up even a published 
opinion. 1 have learned much respecting slavery and the means 
of its abolition since I began to write on these subjects. I ex¬ 
pect to learn much more; and as my mind advances, I have no 
doubt the complexion of my publications will continue to change; 
but 1 have never taught—and I do not risk much when I add, 
no other writer for the Spectator has taught—that slavery would 
be or could be abolished by what you call expatriation. You have 
fallen into a common mode of misapprehending the opinions of 
those who befriend the American Colonization Society. You 
seem to think that no man can favor that cause without holding 
to the scheme of abolishing slavery by the simple and single 
process of carrying away the slaves and making them free in 
Africa. Such a view does great injustice to my opinions and to 
the opinions of thousands besides.” 

Out of their common anxieties, consultations, and labors in 
that critical annual meeting of 1834 grew up an intimate ac¬ 
quaintance between Mr. Bacon and that very remarkable and 
noble character, Gerrit Smith, of Peterboro, New York. There 
were strong contra-sts between the two men in temperament, in 
intellectual constitution, and in the circumstances of their lives ; 
but in their love of liberty and justice and hatred of oppression 
and earnest interest in the enterprise of the African colony they 
were at one. For two years the letters between the friends were 
frequent and sometimes voluminous. In one of the earliest of 
them (March 20,1834) it is almost startling to read in Mr. Bacon’s 
handwriting his proposal in detail to add to the enormous weight 
and diversity of his actual duties the editing and publishing of 
a weekly, Journal of Freedom , the leading object of which (he 
tells his correspondent) “ should be to enlighten, concentrate, 
and express Northern public opinion on the subject of slavery 
and the various means and processes by which slavery is to be 
abolished.” The project met with strong sympathy and aid from 
Mr. Smith. One of the leading features of the Journal of Free- 


32 


THE SERVICES OF LEONARD BACON 


dom , through twelve successive numbers, was a detailed refuta¬ 
tion, paragraph by paragraph, of the letter of Mr. James G. Birney 
against the colonization enterprise. It is to this that Mr. Smith 
refers at the beginning of his letter of October 1,1834. 

“ I have read your review of Birney’s letter so far as it is con¬ 
tained in the two numbers of the Journal of Freedom, and am 
highly gratified with it. Birney is a good man, a man of talents, 
and a fine writer, but he evidently had, during his agency under 
the American Colonization Society, and has yet, cloud}' and very 
erroneous views of the nature and objects of colonization. You 
show him up well. I say you, for I presume you are the author 
of the review. * * * 

“ If I can find time amidst my multiplied engagements, I 
wish to write three numbers for publication, and I wish you to 
write me whether they had better be published in your paper 
or some other. * * * The first number will advocate the 
doctrine of immediate emancipation. The second will enter 
into the means of advancing this doctrine, and in doing this it 
will examine the merits of the Anti-slavery Society. The last 
number will inquire into the merits of the American Coloniza¬ 
tion Society; will find some fault with it, but accord it still 
more praise. In a word, my views on all the subjects will, I 
think, agree substantially—not precisely, perhaps—with yours 
and with those of intelligent colonizationists throughout New 
England. * * * I shall want you to publish criticisms of 
them whenever you think that they deserve criticisms.” 

Extracts from successive letters of Mr. Smith will give a vivid 
idea of the fluctuations of sentiment in this period of history: 

‘‘ December 3,1834.—I have just received a delightful letter 
from James G. Birney. It is so full of friendly and affectionate 
and Christian feeling that had I not criticised his letter before 
I received it I should hardly have had a heart for the office, 
and yet I say nothing harsh of him, and I am glad that in all 
your review of his letter there is not an unkind or harsh line. 
He is doubtless a capital fellow.” 

“ December 18, 1834. I yesterday received the package of 
journals containing the first essay and your letter on it. I thank 
you in the name of the public for this letter. It will do good. 
It well describes the views of the intelligent friends of abolition, 
however they may differ among themselves about the words 
‘ immediate emancipation.’ By the way, I am not very confi¬ 
dent that you are wrong and I am right in the sense we attach 
to these words. I will think more on this point, and at some 
future day I may address a letter to you for publication touch¬ 
ing this point and some others. I am very happy to find that 


TO AFRICAN COLONIZATION. 


33 


your views and my own in respect to abolition are in such per¬ 
fect accordance. I feel very confident that we are on the right 
ground, and I hope the Lord will bless our efforts to bring others 
to that ground. 

“ February 6,1835.—I have no doubt that you should, in some 
way or ways, devote yourself, your time and*powers, to the wel¬ 
fare of the African race. You have loved that race and been 
deeply interested in it from your boyhood. No man in our 
country has written so much as you have on the subject of the 
interests of that race. No man in this country understands 
those interests as well as you do. Here are reasons, not to speak 
of others, conclusive in favor of the consecration of yourself to 
the cause of the African race. 

“June 17, 1835.—Colonization, as commercial men speak, is 
4 on the rise,’ evidently. But it does not yet wear a right aspect. 
I am impatient to see it freed from its evil mixtures. Coloniza¬ 
tion is carried on in too much of a worldly spirit, even by good 
men. It is in this wise made palatable to the wicked. The 
Anti-slavery Society is acquiring a more and more offensive 
character. Not only the Liberator , but the Emancipator, responds 
to Thompson’s outrageous, infamous attacks on the English dele¬ 
gates [to the Baptist churches]. I believe that the spirit of the 
Society responds to that attack. It is an ugly, unbaptized, un¬ 
blessed spirit. 

“ October 17, 1835.—I propose to stop with my wife for a day 
or two in Utica to witness the proceedings of the Anti-slavery 
Convention, in which I understand all the anti-slavery mag¬ 
nates—Birney, Jay, Tap pan, Thompson, Weld, etc.—are to ap¬ 
pear. Of course, I shall be there, but in the character of a 
spectator. Still, I expect to be much interested and instructed. 
I wish you could be by my side on that occasion. * * * 

“ I have just received the October number of the African Re¬ 
pository. It is quite too anti-anti-slavery to please me. I very 
much fear that our Colonization Society, still dear to me, will 
fall into the arms of slaveholders.” 

Mr. Smith’s long letter of October 24 gives a vivid narrative 
of the Anti-slavery Convention at Utica, interrupted and dis¬ 
persed by the violence of a mob claiming to act in the name of 
“ the citizens of Utica,” and adjourning, at Mr. Smith’s invita¬ 
tion, to meet at the church in his village of Peterboro. The 
letter concludes : 

“ I am now perfectly convinced—I was about so before—that 
the enemies of the Anti-slavery Society have established it. 
Henceforth this Society will be the rallying point to the friends 
of the right of free discussion, and I do sincerely believe that 


34 


THE SERVICES OF LEONARD BACON 


the Society has already become so identified with this right that 
the fall of the Society would be the fall of the right. For one, 
therefore, valuing this right above almost every other right, I 
cannot do anything toward demolishing the Anti-slavery So¬ 
ciety. That, however, I have never done. I have labored for 
its purification, not its destruction. What is more, though, I 
see as clearly as ever its gross faults, and have believed that I 
could never join it until they were rectified, I now believe that 
not many months will pass away before I become a member of 
it. I believe I shall have to identify myself with that society 
in order to make the best defense I can of the right of free dis¬ 
cussion. 

41 The meeting resolved on giving me a seat with them. I took 
my seat and made them a speech, wholly about the right of free 
discussion. 

44 January 22,1836.—I am sick of the partisan and intolerant 
spirit which is so prevalent in the Anti-slavery Society and 
among its opponents. God grant that I may never be infected 
with it. I still believe that I have done right in joining the 
Anti-slavery Society, and although I have no better views of the 
Anti-slavery Society (they were always favorable, in the main) 
than I had when we last met, I still think that you should join 
it, and that you could do more good in it than out of it. 

44 The Colonization Society is as dear to me as ever; but I have 
written Gurley that I must stand aloof from it until it ceases 
from its impertinent concern with the subject of slavery. Gurley 
writes me in reply a very kind letter, saying that mine to him 
will be published. You will then see it. 

44 June 10, 1836.—How unhappy is it for Africa and her chil¬ 
dren in our country that the Anti-slavery Society should stand 
in the way of the colonization of Africa, and that the Coloniza¬ 
tion Society should stand in the way of the abolition of slavery ! 
Whatever the causes of it, innocent or guilty, this is nevertheless 
the attitude of hostility 3 " which they bear towards these respective 
objects, and this is true, notwithstanding there are hundreds, if 
not thousands, in each of these societies who deeply lament the 
false and injurious position of their society in this respect. For 
instance, though I love the cause of African colonization as much 
as ever, yet am I numbered with its enemies, and my little in¬ 
fluence is, contrary to my will, exactly against it. On the other 
hand, such men as yourself, Mr. Frelinghuysen, Dr. Proudfit, 
with an abolition pulse not less strong, surely, than my own, 
are, from your continued connection with the Colonization So¬ 
ciety, standing in the way of the anti-slavery cause. In a word, 
the Anti-slavery Society is an anti-colonization society, and the 
Colonization Society is an anti-abolition society. * * * 

44 The Anti-slavery Society is, I think, going on pretty well. 
Its spirit is improving; it is good. But we greatly need an ac- 


TO AFRICAN COLONIZATION. 


35 


cession of wise and prudent men, and especially for the purpose 
of arresting our tendency to become a political party. The 
temper of its last anniversary meeting was most happy. You 
would have been delighted with the exhibition in it of solemn, 
religious, compassionate feeling, and you would have been dis¬ 
gusted with the pro-slavery effusions and the merry-making in 
the Colonization meeting the following evening.” 

This is not a history of the work of Gerrit Smith; but I make 
no apology for these large extracts from unpublished letters of 
that very eminent and noble gentleman, for I know no better 
way of illustrating the agitations of the period. It was a time 
of violent actions and reactions (to borrow a metaphor applied 
by Dr. Bushnell to this very case) between a corroding acid and 
a caustic alkali, and the effervescence was tremendous. Men of 
clear convictions and independent judgment found themselves, 
from time to time, in unexpected company. Dr. Channing per¬ 
ceived that the fury of the abolitionists had produced in the.free 
States a reaction favorable to slavery; and yet he u found him¬ 
self compelled by the persecutions and mobs which had been 
got up against these societies to take sides with a party whose 
doctrine of immediate emancipation he renounced, whose system 
of agitation he deprecated, and whose spirit of denunciation he 
abhorred. Just so, thousands of the best of men, struck with the 
ferocity of the denunciations indiscriminately launched against 
all slave-holders in all possible circumstances, had been con¬ 
strained to take sides with slave-holders and to say, Whatever 
may be true of slavery, slave-holding is not necessarily so bad 
as you represent it. Those who have demurred at the new doc¬ 
trine of immediate emancipation, or its corollaries, such as the ex¬ 
clusion of every slave-owner from all Christian communion, have 
been villified in the publications of these reformers as “dough¬ 
faces,” “ pro-slavery advocates,” “ apologists for oppression and 
man-stealing,” and by suffering the same reproaches with the 
slave-holder, from the same quarter, have been compelled thus 
far to sympathize with him.* 

While the atmosphere was thus vexed with contrary currents, 
in one direction drifting the most munificent and enthusiastic 
of all the friends of the Colonization cause into the ranks of its 
avowed enemies, in the opposite direction drawing other friends 


*L. Bacon in Christian Spectator, January, 1836. 



36 


THU SERVICES OF LEONARD BACON 


of the cause into seeming compliances with injustice and op¬ 
pression, men felt the value of a man solidly fixed on his clear 
and well-reasoned convictions and “ standing four-square to all 
the winds.” From his early student days the demand had'been 
pressed on Mr. Bacon that he should devote himself officially 
to the cause of Africa and the African race. This demand was 
now renewed with the most urgent importunity. Within the 
space of a few months no less than five distinct proposals were 
declined by him, offering him large increase of salary, and even 
inviting him to name his own terms on which he would give 
himself to the public service in this line of work. In one case 
only did he hold the question for a time seriously in suspense. 
In 1836 there was an earnest and hopeful effort to organize the 
sober, reasonable, and Christian anti-slavery sentiment of the 
country into a working society ; and that leader of the extreme 
Abolitionist party, Arthur Tappan, a member of his own con¬ 
gregation, with whom, nevertheless, he was on this subject in 
the sharpest antagonism, declared that if Leonard Bacon could 
be induced to take the practical leadership of the movement he 
would sustain it with an annual subscription of a thousand dol¬ 
lars. This request was backed by the personal urgency of such 
numerous and weighty names that he could not refuse to ponder 
it deliberately, but it was not long in doubt in his own mind. 
It was decided by the superior claim of the flock at New Haven 
“ over which the Holy Ghost had made him overseer.” 

It is not necessary to dwell in detail on the later services of 
Mr. Bacon to the Colonization cause. I do not find that his 
early convictions of the wisdom and hopefulness of the plan of 
colonization were changed by the embarrassments that beset the 
administration of that enterprise in America or the occasional 
failures or reverses in Africa. But the discussion of the slavery 
question now began to take a wider range, and his part in the 
debate turned upon other points. In fact, the warfare which 
the Anti-slavery Society had waged against the friends of the 
African colony had quite ceased to be a warfare of principle, if, 
indeed, it had ever been more than a matter of partisan preju¬ 
dice and passion. When in 1846 he collected into a duodecimo 
volume of 250 pages some of his more important writings on the 
theme than which “ no subject not immediately connected with 
his official duties or his professional studies had occupied so 


TO AFRICAN COLONIZATION. 


37 


much of his attention,” he eliminated some passages relating to 
the colonization enterprise, as belonging to an obsolete contro¬ 
versy. “That controversy,” he said, since our Anti-slavery 
friends have done so much at colonization in Canada, seems to 
be at rest, and I have no wish to revive it.”* 

The question has often arisen in my mind, as I have reviewed 
the published and unpublished records of the long and always 
active life of Leonard Bacon, what would have been the differ¬ 
ence to himself and to the country if some of those entreaties 
that were repeatedly urged upon him from his boyish entrance 
upon public life on to the prime of his manhood that he would 
devote himself wholly to the subject of slavery and the remedies 
for it, had won his consent. Is it possible that with his clarity 
of vision, his judicial temper, his confessed mastery in debate, 
and that power of conciliation which on so many notable occa- 

* Slavery discussed in Occasional Essays from 1833 to 1S46. By Leon¬ 
ard Bacon, pastor of the First Church in New Haven, p. ix. On the 
same page occurs a notable sentence, which is currently quoted as from 
Abraham Lincoln. It is indeed Lincoln’s sentence, adopted by him from 
this very volume, to which he repeatedly acknowledged his obligations 
for settling his mind in those clear, temperate, and strong convictions on 
the slavery question, on which he stood so firmly and inexpugnably 
against attacks from opposite quarters. The entire closing paragraph of 
Mr. Bacon’s preface is worth quoting for its historical bearings : 

“It is no part of the object in any of these essays to prove that the 
slavery which exists in these American States is wrong. To me it seems 
that the man who needs argument on that point cannot be argued with. 
What elementary idea of right and wrong can that man have? If that 
form of government, that system of social order, is not wrong—if those 
laws of the Southern States by virtue of which slavery exists there and 
is what it is—nothing is wrong. Such a book as Wheeler’s ‘ Law of 
Slavery’ leaves no room for any argument to prove that our Southern 
slavery is wrong, if only the reader is gifted with a moral sense. It is 
therefore taken for granted in these essays, from first to last, that every 
man has his rights, and that our American slavery, which denies all 
rights to some two millions of human beings and decrees that they shall 
always be held at the lowest point of degradation, is too palpably wrong 
to be argued about. The wrong of that slavery, however, is one thing, 
and the way to rectify that wrong is another thing. The wrongfulness of 
that entire body of laws, opinions, and practices is one thing, and the 
criminality of the individual master who tries to do right is another 
thing. These essays therefore treat chiefly of the way in which the 
wrong can be set right.” 



38 


THE SERVICES OF LEONARD BACON 


sions availed to draw divided parties to unanimity of action, be 
might, from some center of national influence, concentrating all 
his faculties on this one subject, have controlled the vehement 
courses of public sentiment that were rushing through diverse 
channels toward the awful verge of civil war? Or would he, 
perhaps, have lost more by the change than he could have 
gained—the completeness of view that is not to be had from the 
thick of the fight, the all-roundness of judgment due to the 
habitual holding of this subject in its proportionate relations to 
other subjects, and would it perhaps have been proved in his 
case, as in the case of so many who gave themselves exclusively 
to the study of this agitating theme, that “ oppression maketh 
a wise man mad.” The question is of little interest except to 
those who love and reverence his memory. As for him, he 
found his path of duty made plain to him, and he was fully 
content to rest and stand in his lot till the end of the days. I 
cannot doubt that he would have repeated at the close of his 
long life the words which he wrote in his youth concerning his 
labors in behalf of the colonization of Africa: 

“ We esteem it a privilege to be among the least honored of 
the co-workers in this undertaking. In our retrospective mo¬ 
ments, when we think what we have been doing in the world 
and ask ourselves how life has gone with us thus far, there is 
nothing which more illuminates the past with cheering recol¬ 
lections than our humble efforts in behalf of Africa. It is in 
the hope of adding to that treasure—a treasure of which no 
mortal vicissitudes can ever deprive us; it is in the hope of 
communicating some additional impulse to a cause in which 
the destinies of unborn millions are so deeply involved; it is 
because conscience and God forbid us to be silent so long as 
our voice can be raised in behalf of such interests, that we urge 
on our readers these facts and arguments. If we may but 
awaken one mind to a lasting sympathy with our own enthu¬ 
siasm ; if we may but enlist in behalf of this cause one new 
efficient friend, it will not be in vain that we have snatched from 
intervals of relaxation, from hours of repose, and from the duties 
of a laborious and responsible calling the time which we have 
spent in this endeavor.” * 

Leonard Woolsey Bacon. 


* Quarterly Christian Spectator for 1830, p. 481. 


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